Skipper

Oh boy, when British voters go off someone, they sure do it bigtime. The recent poll in the Mail on Sunday
really showed how voters' view of Gordon have curdled in the space of a year. Maybe polls are only snapshots and maybe they change daily but politicians watch them obsessively closely, none more so than Gordon Brown. He must have choked over his cornflakes when he read this one.

1. The Conservatives lead by 23 points- 40-26- with Lib Dems on 14.

2. 44% say Brown should resign now.

3. Only 3% say Brown has charmisma while 50% hand that accolade to Cameron.

4. In most areas of character-trust, honesty, even being in the pub quiz team- Cameron leads by two to one.

5. Most worryingly of all for Brown, 53% would prefer Tony Blair to return instead of Gordon!

Brown's response? He insists he is equal to the task of being prime minister, using a recent interview to make a distinction between 'personality' and 'character':

'Personality: this is where someone would walk into a room, look around and say, “what do people want to hear and how can I express it?î That’s personality. But someone who walks into a room and says this is actually where I stand, that’s character.'

The MoS polls shows that ewven if voters might really prefer 'character' when the chips are down, they are usually swayed by personality; someone to whom they can relate, who they find attractive and who can persuade them they can deliver the goods. That such the person winning such a contest is a privileged Old Etonian makes it all the more galling to party members like myself and thousands of others.